Militancy in N/Delta; where is Amnesty?

SIR: As at the last count, no less than 50 Nigerian soldiers are reportedly massacred for doing their lawful duties of protecting the nation’s oil facilities in the Niger Delta.

The Amnesty International’s stock in trade which has been its trademark in Africa is to keep a muted response to base criminal infractions against law enforcement agents by non state actors.

The Amnesty International has taken no step either in rebuttals or advice to host countries on the imperatives of arresting proliferation of arms and ammunitions across-the-board in most African countries.

However, whenever the law enforcement agencies respond either in self-defence or in executing the demands of their duty, Amnesty International would morph into its hackneyed stereotype of crime against humanity.

It is high time African countries especially Nigeria tested the validity of their sovereign rights to self defence at the International Court of Justice.

This requires the affected nations to proactively lodge complaints at the ICJ on the need allow African countries to exercise their constitutional rights in arresting all forms of criminal infringements in their jurisdiction.

For instance despite the overwhelming success of the Nigerian troops in dismantling the ascendancy of Boko Haram, a feat that earns the accolade of well meaning Nigerians, what Amnesty International could notice is the crime committed by the military against the insurgents as if insurgency is an offshoot of the law of the land; the thousands of innocent lives recklessly being terminated by these insurgents are secondary to Amnesty International.

Amnesty International should respond to the theatre of the absurd senselessly playing out in Niger Delta or isolate itself completely from its inevitable military corollaries.